Photo: VCG

A Russian goat named Timur whose unusual friendship with a tiger won him nationwide fame, has died, director of the safari park where the pair lived, said Friday.

"Timur's heart stopped beating on November 5," Dmitry Mezentsev, director of a safari park outside the Pacific port of Vladivostok, told AFP.

The billy goat, believed to be around five years old, was cremated and will be buried "with full honors", his keeper Elvira Golovina said in a statement. 

The goat died of natural causes but his health deteriorated following an altercation with a male Siberian tiger he unexpectedly befriended in 2015, Mezentsev said.

In a story that captivated Russia, Timur was sent to the safari park as live prey for Amur the Siberian tiger.

But the tiger did not touch the billy goat when it entered the enclosure in late 2015 because the goat did not show any fear.

The two quickly became inseparable.